Women well represented in d!talk speaker lineup

The d!talk platform at this year’s new-look CEBIT will comprise some ten stages, over 300 hours of talks and over 600 high-power speakers.

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Women are well represented in the speaker lineup, which will cover a multitude of digitization themes. Among the many renowned female presenters will be Dr. Auma Obama, the journalist, author and founder of the Sauti Kuu Foundation; Martina Koederitz, who was CEO of IBM Deutschland before being appointed to her current role as IBM’s Global Industry Managing Director, Industrial Products and Automotive; and Sophia Velastegui, the General Manager of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence unit, who made Business Insider’s "Most Powerful Female Engineers" list in 2017.

Dr. Obama is well known for championing ecological, economic and social sustainability causes. She also established the Sauti Fuu Foundation, which has the empowerment of financially and socially disadvantaged children as its core mission. On Take-off Monday (11 June), she will discuss how digitization can help young people take control and shape their own future. "It’s not enough to just hand money to disadvantaged people. You also have to give them the space to learn and develop freely,” Obama explains.

IBM manager Martina Koederitz will be giving the keynote address at CEBIT’s Women in Digital Business Summit on Wednesday 13 June at the Center Stage in Hall 17. The Summit will focus on the challenges and opportunities women face in the digital professions.

Wednesday will also see the staging of CEBIT’s Artificial Intelligence Summit in Hall 27. The Summit will feature a wide range of sector-specific AI application case studies and explore the impacts of AI technologies on society. Among the speakers will be Sophia Velastegui, who will discuss the latest trends and developments in the world of AI. Currently a senior manager at Microsoft, Velastegui has worked for a number of well-known high-tech companies, including the bluetooth headphone manufacturer Doppler Labs, the smart home technologies company Nest Labs – a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet – and Apple.

Stacia Carr, Head of Engineering at e-commerce company Zalando, will also be there to explain how AI and machine learning can influence the world of fashion by altering customer behavior.